Disclaimer: The Eqbal Ahmad Centre for Public Education (EACPE) encourages critical and independent thinking and believes in a free expression of one’s opinion. However, the views expressed in contributed articles are solely those of their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the EACPE.
Since the current government took office last year, it has pursued to turn around Pakistan’s economic woes and make sure that the country gets on a sound financial footing. The measure of its success is debatable, but the positive intent has definitely been there.
Prime Minister Imran Khan and his team of economic advisors have been trying to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) to the country through showcasing Pakistan’s attractiveness as a place of doing business. Indeed, the ease of doing business rankings of the country have gotten better as a result of these efforts. One of the major accomplishments of this government has been in expediting and streamlining visa application procedures for foreign citizens who want to visit Pakistan. This makes it easier for business people and tourists to apply and obtain visas.
Any country’s foreign mission is its primary representation in a foreign country; a place where not only citizens residing in the foreign country get access to the necessary consular services, but also foreigners who need visas or residence permits can apply for these documents. Pakistan’s Consulate General in Germany is located in Frankfurt, which is the German financial hub and is also home to a Pakistani diaspora. The Consulate is situated in a bungalow on the Kennedyallee along with many other countries’ foreign representations. The location is perfect and easily accessible.
The inside of the Consulate, though is another matter. It strives to prove physicists wrong that instantaneous travel between time and space is impossible. A country’s consulate is officially its soil and one is literally transported to a government office in Pakistan in the blink of an eye upon stepping inside the Pakistani Consulate in Frankfurt. And not in a good way.
Descending the stairs to the basement that is the consular section of the bungalow, one may very well think that one is perhaps in the wrong place. However, this confusion is proved momentary upon seeing the coupon dispensing machine. This machine dispenses coupons for two counters, providing different consular services. The machine has broken buttons. One literally has to reach into a hole and press the button on the circuit board which dispenses the correct counter coupon.
The next step in accessing consular services is to enter the perpetually overcrowded waiting/counter room. The people in the waiting room are overwhelmingly male. As you are now in Pakistan, Pakistani social norms apply from here on out. Women are subject to rude and unapologetic staring, “foreigners” (remember that this part of Frankfurt isn’t technically Germany so Germans are in this category as well) too do not escape the eyeballing, and, lastly, English will get you a long way but even more stares.
A religious man in a beard and preferably a rosary in hand will extol the virtues of Islam from a TV mounted in an upper corner of the room and will be promptly ignored by all but the non-Pakistanis. The latter’s eyes remain glued to it when (true story follows) words like “Terrorism” and “Extremism” flash across the screen in English with thunderclaps and animated lightening in the background. A large group of Germans I encountered in the Consulate on the day this happened stared at the screen as if transfixed by fear and horror when the aforementioned thunderclaps sounded.
Would it not be prudent for the government to consider investing a little bit of money into renovating Pakistan’s foreign missions?
Upstairs in the Consulate, the din from the waiting room below is somewhat lessened, due to less people present here. A bored looking, barely functioning and outrageously expensive copying machine (I wonder if the money is meant for the Dam Fund?) spits out copies demanded by the bureaucrats sitting below for essential documentation of their tasks. Truck art is painted on the walls as an afterthought but should be applauded because it brings at least some culture to the place. It almost makes up for the glittery wallpaper in the waiting room below. Almost.
The point of this article is to ask these questions: would it not be prudent for the government to consider investing a little bit of money into renovating Pakistan’s foreign missions? Maybe utilize some of the proceeds from that photocopy machine in the Consulate in Frankfurt for a facelift? A little bit of decoration is surely not too much to ask of our representatives in a foreign country. Then again, maybe it is.
Secondly, a huge majority of Pakistanis – and almost all Overseas Pakistanis – is aware of the image problem our country has. An overwhelming majority of non-Pakistanis abroad consider it an unsafe and terrorist infested place. While that reputation is not deserved, we need to step up and make sure that that image is not cemented in foreigners’ minds when visiting our own foreign representation. It is incomprehensible to me that a PTDC tourism video or a vlogger’s positive video touring the country cannot be played on the TV on a loop. This should be a no-brainer for the consular staff.
Perhaps next time the Prime Minster or a member of his cabinet consider asking for investment in our country by either foreign firms or Overseas Pakistanis, they should bear in mind what image a foreigner would be taking with them of our country and why Overseas Pakistanis are going into a stifling basement to get their passports renewed or documents attested.
Nice article.No doubt, Sometimes a bad name is worse than a bad deed.